


Such A Delicate Thing

by Canadiantardis



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Adult!Gamzee, Age Difference, Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, Bad Ending, Dark, Dubious Consent, Fluff, Human/Troll Hybrids, I guess? I know very little about troll biology, Kidnapping, Kinda sorta you will understand in the fic, Minor Character Death, Mpreg, Multi, Omega John, Omega Verse, Other, POV Multiple, Past Character Death, Past Relationship(s), Pregnancy, Small bits of fluff between the darkness, Smut, Stockholm Syndrome, Time Skips, Troll Biology, Xenophilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-14
Updated: 2016-06-30
Packaged: 2018-05-26 17:33:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 13
Words: 17,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6249103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Canadiantardis/pseuds/Canadiantardis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the age of ten, John knew aliens existed.<br/>At the age of thirteen, John is kidnapped by said aliens.<br/>Now, at the age of sixteen, John wonders if he's in love with said aliens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> In this fic, humans follow the Omegaverse, and John is an Omega, but within my fic, Omegas aren't seen in a positive light, and I mention it briefly, but since this fic doesn't take largely place on Earth, you don't really need to worry about that.  
> Trolls, however, have their own biology, with nooks and bulges and I'll try to explain that as best I can but I'm not a very graphic descriptor, so...

John knew aliens existed, had for a few years now. He was currently bound to a couple while a large shadow stands in front of the light, giving a dark purple outline.

John remembered trying to get his friends to understand what he was talking about when he said there were aliens that kidnapped his half-sister when she was fourteen. A thing that looked almost human except the sickly gray skin, pitch black hair, yellow eyes and most bizarre of all, horns that looked like a weird spear and two pronged fork.

But no one believed him, saying he was just a runt of a kid, not even ten. They never believed the words of an Omega, anyway. They didn’t care about them, letting the dying breed go about their days, hoping there would be an end of the ‘Omega pests.’

So no one believed him, three years later, when the same alien he had seen kidnap Jane came and took him, John yelling in fear for someone, anyone to save him, but no one even so much as looked in the general direction John was being dragged towards.

He wasn’t certain how much time passed since he had been taken for as soon as they reached the woods close in the middle of the park near his home, he felt immense pressure on his mind and he passed out, waking up with his hands bound behind his back, and two other bodies that he had first thought were other humans until he saw the dark gray skin tied up with him.

From the corner of his eyes, John could make out a bit about the other two aliens. They looked young, like they would be about his age if they had the same passage of time. One also looked like they didn’t have any horns like the one that had taken him, but the other had shorter ones, so John guessed horns were unique like fingerprints.

The two aliens never moved, the only way John knew they were still alive was the pulse he felt from their wrists.

Then the large purple outline appeared, with curling horns like two spirals atop wild hair. John saw dark purple irises glow and stare at him in the dark, making the young Omega tremble in fear. He had never known fear like this, not even when his sister had been taken practically in front of him or when his father and he had to board up their house because protestors wanted ‘all Omega rats killed’ just a couple months ago.

Thinking about his dad made John freeze. His dad most likely had no idea where he was, he might think he was killed.

“Please, let me go.” John heard himself plead softly, and he was almost surprised by the wobble his voice made.

The purple eyes narrowed and the figure took a step forward, blocking any sort of light for John to see until all he saw were the glowing eyes coming steadily closer to him.

A hand wrapped around John’s neck before reaching up to his cheek, surprising the Omega and all words seemed to fizzle in confusion.

“You do not understand. That’s motherfucking fine. You’re safe here.” The voice was deep mixed with random inflections of a higher pitch. “I won’t hurt you. You’re safe. That planet is doomed, motherfucker.”

John stiffened. _Did he just say planet? As in not where we are?_

“Shh, sleep.” The hand cupping his cheek slid over his mouth as John opened it to speak, and the pressure returned and John was embraced by the land of his mind.

When he woke up again, John was in a different room, much brighter to the room he had woken up in before, but he was still bound with the two other aliens.

He jumped in surprise when one of the aliens moved, their neck twisting around to catch a glimpse of John.

“Oh! It’s awake!” The alien cried, twisting around to their other side to talk to the other alien tied up. “Kitty, it’s awake!”

“Really? Is it gunna save us now that it’s awake?” The other voice was scratchy, as if used to yelling for hours without end, and lower in pitch compared to the other alien, and John could practically feel the sarcasm dripping from the alien’s lips.

“Well, maybe. Aliens are weird creatures, maybe they’re purr-etty strong.” The first alien said and John narrowed his eyes at the strange way it said ‘pretty.’

John blinked a couple times, looking around the room they were in. It was very bare, with a barred and impossibly dark window high above them on one wall, and a steel door opposite it. The walls seemed to be made of metal, as well as the floor, and bright light was overhead. He groaned at the brightness of the lights.

“Ugh, where are we?” He asked.

“Oh! It can talk!” The seemingly excitable alien cried again, reminding John of a kitten or a very hyper dog. “We don’t actually know. I think it’s a ship.”

“A ship? Why’s it metal?” John asked, thinking of a large boat that explorers used a really long time ago.

“Beclaws if it wasn’t, we’d die?” From the corner of his eye, John saw the alien tilt their head slightly while the other seemed to give an annoyed groan.

“All we know is that the Highblood took us and we’re all fucking dead.” The other said.

John frowned, understanding all the words but not understanding the sentence. “What? Highblood?”

“Oh my god, yes, the Highblood. Don’t you know him? Big scary juggalo troll that takes kids and then their found years later fucking dead.” The same alien answered, sounding angry, and again, John thought he understood what the words meant, but the sentence stumped him.

“I don’t… I don’t understand.” He said, shaking his head.

“Karkitty, you’re confusing the alien. It doesn’t know our way of life.” The first alien sounded like they were scolding the other, and John wondered if they knew each other before this happened.

“Before we get to that, could you tell me who you are? Like, species and name?” John asked. “I’m John Egbert, and I’m human.”

“What’s a John?” The first alien asked. “What a strange name.”

“It’s fucking stupid, that’s what it is.” The second said.

“Not as weird as Kitty!” John defended.

“That’s not my fucking name! It’s fucking Karkat, not Kitty or Karkitty!” The second, Karkat, yelled, which seemed to cause the first alien to giggle. “Shut up, crazy cat girl.”

“Hey, don’t be mean, Kitty.” The first sounded like they were pouting. “It’s a nice nickname.”

“Okay, so, Karkat? And what kind of thing are you?” John interrupted.

“Troll, duh.” Karkat’s voice again dripped with exasperation.

“Don’t mind him, he’s always a grump.” The first said. “And I’m Nepeta. Now that introductions are done, what should we do meow?”

“I just want to know where we’re going? Or where we are.” John muttered, not able to see much else besides the room they were in.

“Well, maybe you should try untying us with those claws you’re so fucking proud of, idiot.” Karkat suggested with heavy sarcasm, but the other, Nepeta, seemed to brighten.

“Oh yeah! John, be careful, I don’t want to scratch you on accident.” The alien, troll, whatever, warned before John felt sharp nails lightly reach out by his hands, and he pulled his hands closer to his back as the three young creatures heard the sound of rope being cut at slowly.

It took a long time, and a few breaks in between as Nepeta slowly chipped away at the rope binding them until they heard the distinct snap and the bonds went loose.

“Fucking finally!” Karkat groaned, rubbing his wrists and John turned around to face the other two fully.

Karkat seemed to have a permanent scowl on his face, weird yellow eyes narrowed and suspicious, but wild, almost fluffy hair sticking up at angles with orange colours sticking out where he guessed his horns were. He wore bland, dark gray clothes with a grey symbol John remembered always seeing on the newspapers horoscopes, but he couldn’t remember which sign that was.

Nepeta looked quite the opposite, with a face that would make an anime cat girl jealous. She had a small mouth and her eyes were wide, looking at John just as curious as the boy felt himself in the aliens in front of him. Her hair looked messy, like whenever John took off his winter hat and it just looked static-y, and her horns even looked like cat ears, which just continued the weird cat girl trend Nepeta had going. She was also wearing a sign on her shirt, but it was a sober kind of green, like the forest in the middle of summer by John’s home, and a bright blue overcoat that looked slightly too big for her.

“You look really weird. Do all humans look like you?” Nepeta asked, poking John’s arm in many places and that was when he noticed her nails, which didn’t look much like human nails, but like a feline used to hunting.

“Uh, kinda? I mean, we have different skin colours and hair colours and eye colours but most of the people I’ve met look really similar to me I guess.” John shrugged. “Do all of you look the same?”

“Hmm, well, not all of us. Depends on our blood.” Nepeta replied and John frowned in confusion. “Greenbloods normally look alike, but no one looks alike when their of a higher blood, or seadweller.”

 _Greenblood?_ “Seadweller?” John asked.

“What? Don’t you know what a seadweller is? They’re the most powerful trolls in the entire galaxy.” Her voice lowered as she continued. “Some of them are just pawful, though. They are really strong and don’t care about anyone but themselves.”

“They especially fucking hate any grub with a mutation.” Karkat piped in with a glower. “They cull anyone who isn’t meeting the standards of their bloodcaste. Fucking bullshit.”

“But you survived, Kitty.” Nepeta put in and John frowned again.

“What are you talking about?” He asked, looking between the two troll aliens.

“Well, Karkitty here is a mutantblood, and with such rare blood too. No one’s seen a redblood that candy coloured since…” Nepeta trailed off, looking uncertain.

“Since?”

“Since the Sufferer. He’s a forbidden topic, but he became a martyr for lowbloods everywhere. He’s been whispered about for eons.” Nepeta said in a low voice, as if afraid someone would hear them.

“What are lowbloods? What does blood even have to do with anything?” John asked.

“Blood is ev-furrything!” Nepeta said in a surprised tone. “It determines how long you live, the jobs you can take, and how likely you’ll be culled.”

“But it’s just blood.” John said, not understanding.

“Do you not have bloodcastes?” Nepeta asked and John shook his head. “Really? That’s so weird! How do you humans even choose who rules over you, then?”

“Elections I think.” John replied. “Anybody can take over the government as long as majority of the people vote for them, no matter what they are.”

“That’s fucking stupid.” Karkat muttered, but until this point, the other two had ignored him.

“Well, not as stupid as choosing what happens to you based on how you were born.” John defended.

“Do all humans have the same blood then?” Nepeta asked suddenly, cocking her head to the side the way a curious pet would look at something.

“Yeah, as far as I know, we all bleed red.” John said.

The two trolls were quiet for a few moments before Karkat broke the silence.

“Humans are fucking weird.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope everything I've written so far makes sense. This is my first omegaverse fic(although its not really an omegaverse fic since its like mentioned only now and rarely again), and first time writing something as dark as I plan this to be.


	2. I

John, Karkat and Nepeta spent about half a year on a spaceship in just that one room, not seeing anyone else, even when they were given food. John found Nepeta to be really funny and sweet, while Karkat seemed to open up a bit more and John could start to pick up on the other’s mannerisms.

When they finally left the room, it was when the troll that had kidnapped them appeared with another troll, who seemed to be bound to a wheelchair and had really large, wide horns like a bull’s. They brought the three of them out of the room and off the large ship onto a land that was nothing like earth. This, on the one hand fascinated John, who couldn’t stop looking around curiously at the sky, or at the weird looking purple trees, but it also frightened him because he wasn’t on earth, he wasn’t anywhere close to his father, to his home, to anything familiar.

They were brought into another building with bizarre architecture, as if a child had designed it. It was large and built with some dark gray material, with weird five-point windows and just looked like each room was just dropped on one another, like a child would put blocks together haphazardly.

The inside was just as strange to John, as it was barely furnished besides random piles of things. John saw the largest pile was of horns, the kind that would be seen on bikes or that a clown would use, but he also saw piles of sharp looking weapons, pinballs, and even several piles of clothing, all stained with what looked like dried paint of many different colours.

John and the other two trolls were moved along until they reached a room that must have been at least four stories up, where the strangest looking bath thing sat in the corner, another pile of clothing that looked cleaner than the ones downstairs, and a simple bed. They were pushed in by their kidnapper and he quickly left with a creepy spacey smile while the wheelchair troll stayed, a kind smile on his face.

“You three are really lucky to have been saved by him, you know.” He said, a stutter appearing ever so slightly on some words.

“Saved us? He kidnapped us!” Karkat shouted, a look of fury that seemed to hide his nervousness for the moment. “We were doing just fine before the spiderbitch took us.”

“Vriska is not a bitch.” The other troll sounded like he was trying to scold the young troll as he wheeled right up to the doorframe, blocking the three young ones from leaving. “She was saving you from being culled. Gamzee knew who was going to be culled and saved as many as he could.”

“What are you talking about?” Nepeta seemed to whine. “I was purrfectly safe with my lusus. You took me from her.”

“Cullbots would have come and taken you, and you know it.” The troll seemed adamant about what he was saying.

“What are cullbots? What?” John interrupted, not understanding what was being said.

“You don’t know what cullbots are?” All three trolls looked at him in surprise, with Karkat even looking slightly envious. “They cull anybody who doesn’t fit what the Empress deems as good enough for her species.”

“Okay, but what does that have to do with me? I’m not a troll. I’m a human, not even the same anything as you.” John countered.

“The Empress has already invaded your home. Gamzee saved you before anything could happen.” The troll said.

John couldn’t understand what was being said to him, couldn’t believe what the older troll was telling him. It wasn’t that he was in denial, no, it was more to do with the fact that the troll believed his own words even though from the looks on Nepeta and Karkat’s faces, all three knew it wasn’t the truth. But the troll was adamant about the kidnapper, Gamzee apparently, saving them instead of kidnapping the three of them, and it made John feel uneasy.

They quit arguing when the three realized they wouldn’t get anywhere with the wheelchair bound troll, and he left them in the room, locking the door behind him with a cheerful ‘I’ll come back with food in a few hours!’ And the three young creatures were left alone once again.

Soon, life in the house almost seemed like normal for the three kidnapped creatures. Tavros, the wheelchair bound troll they later learned, would wheel up and give them their meals, always with a sympathetic smile when they tried to argue about being let go, to help them escape, to just tell them why they were taken. Nepeta soon became the first to give up the conversations altogether after about two months, John joining her a few months after her, but Karkat was stubborn. During the times he got really riled up, Tavros would call for Gamzee, who would take the young hotheaded troll and take him… somewhere, for hours, sometimes days before bringing him back quiet and sullen.

He only stopped the arguing when he turned another ‘sweep older’ when they had been taken for over a year then.

After that, it was simply them getting meals, walking around the house heavily supervised by Tavros, or ever the kidnapper himself, and if any of them caused trouble, which was normally Karkat, they would be taken away from the others for solitary confinement for who knew how long. It worried John every time he saw Karkat, or the rare times Nepeta, be taken from the others, kicking and crying out and just looking both furious and scared and John knowing he couldn’t do anything.

It was just after Karkat had been taken for making a swipe at Gamzee when Tavros startled him.

“I know that look. Jane had it a lot of the time.” He said with that same sympathetic smile and John froze.

Narrowing his eyes, John turned to Tavros and spoke slowly, as if he was afraid of being misheard. “Who did you say?”

“Jane. She was another human Gamzee saved.” Tavros said, now looking thoughtful. “Now that I think about it… Yeah, yeah, she said she had this weird thing called a sibling. Said looked like her, but more ‘guyish’ whatever that meant, and darker eyes.”

“Jane’s here? You know her?” John asked.

“Yeah, I knew her.” Now the smile faltered. “She was a good friend, but…”

_Knew? Was?_ “What…?” John started, and just like that, there was a sad, sad smile on Tavros’s face and _no that’s not true. She’s not, she can’t be, she’s too young._

“Just before Gamzee went off to save you three, my group, Jane and another troll, Equius, all got sick with a bad disease. It rendered me in this wheelchair, but the others… They didn’t pull through. Might’ve been because of blood, but the medicine didn’t work for Equius, and Jane was, well she wasn’t a troll.”

He trailed off but John understood. Jane had died of an alien illness, so far away from home and anyone who knew her and loved her. God, their dad would be heartbroken to know that.

“John?” He felt a gentle hand on his shoulder and snapped back to seeing Nepeta look at him worriedly with her big, big eyes. “Are you okay?”

He tried to say something, a yes, a no, something, but it sounded like a mangled hum, even after clearing his throat, and Nepeta just rubbed her hand comfortingly over his arm, a sad purr-like noise coming from her. John welcomed it, and he leant heavily onto the other troll as he tried to figure out if he would cry or not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I changed the beginning about three times because I was unsatisfied with how the flow seemed or how it didn't seem to mesh with what I have written for later chapters.  
> Also, sorry there was no chapter last week! I got sick(either because of the weather or stress from school or something else) and had school work to do on top of it. Having said that, school is really heating up for me, so I don't know if I'll be able to write/post chapters during this entire month. '~' I hope you don't mind waiting a month.


	3. II

John had only just turned fifteen when the three noticed Tavros’s health decline even more. It wasn’t a surprise that the illness that took his group wasn’t going to go away that quickly, but it started out like someone with cancer; slow at first than before anyone could react, there was no cure. John, Karkat and Nepeta could only watch as the ever smiling troll became weaker and weaker, and soon was even unable to push himself on his wheelchair.

Their kidnapper became distant as Tavros got sicker, ignoring the pleading notes Tavros made for getting into the strange sleeping pools the trolls called Recuperacoons, until there came a day when no one heard or saw Tavros for the entire day, and the three, fearing the worst, sent Karkat to look in Tavros’s room, only for the loud mouthed troll to return looking pale, even with grey skin.

“Everything’s gone.” He said in a weirdly soft voice.

“What? What’s gone?” John and Nepeta asked.

“Everything. Even the wheelchair. There’s nothing of Tav’s that’s left.” Karkat said.

“No…!” The other two gasped and demanded to see for themselves, and sure enough, there was nothing in Tavros’s room that had belonged to him. It was like he never existed.

It was then that Gamzee seemed to change around them. He was more observant over the others, more strict on punishments, and he even changed the rooms. He made most of the rooms inaccessible for the kidnapped teens and making the places they were able to be in sparse in terms of furniture and other things that make the weird building a home of sorts.

It was about two months after Karkat had told them about Tavros that the change in their kidnapper came to a terrifying head. And he started with Nepeta.

Nepeta

Nepeta wasn’t sure what happened, but within seconds she felt something in the back of her mind, forcing her to stand stockstill as if something was hunting her, like when she had lived with her lusus. She saw their kidnapper grab the human and Karkat by their hair and force them away from her, and there was a tone in his voice that shook the girl to her core.

But despite her fear, none of them could do anything. They all knew this by now. There was no fighting against the adult troll and whoever stayed around them to keep them in control.

Soon she saw Gamzee return alone, already grabbing for Nepeta and the pressure left her as soon as the large claw-like hand was securely fisted in her hair. The girl cried out, her claws already desperately clawing at his wrist, but that only made him get a better grip on her and lifted her up until she was barely touching the ground.

“Please!” She cried, not knowing what was going on or what caused this. “Let go!”

The highblood didn’t listen, just dragged her to one of the rooms that had always been banned from entering and between her attempts to free herself she saw it was just one single large room with nothing but a human bed.

She was thrown onto the bed and she scrambled back onto her feet before she froze at the predator look Gamzee gave her, like she was a little wiggler to be eaten or something and she felt paralysed. Distantly she wondered if this was how her prey felt when they saw her, but all thoughts were thrown out of her head as the troll advanced on her.

Despite her best struggles, Nepeta found herself trapped under the highblood, his predator look only growing as one hand trapped her wrists high above her head and he straddled her, the other hand gripping and pulling and stretching and tearing her already messy and stressed clothes.

“Please!” She cried again, uselessly as she tried to shake him off, voice raising in fear as he wouldn’t stop, wouldn’t leave her hips or her skin under her shirt. “Please, please, stop!”

Gamzee just growled and lowered himself on her, grabbing her chin harshly. “I can do whatever the fuck I want.” He said in a low voice before smashing their lips together, his fangs already shredding her lips to keep her quiet.

It was disgusting, he tasted disgusting, like old lowblood grubsauce mixed with something like… Supor slime and she wanted so badly to gag but now there was something foreign forcing its way into her mouth and she whined in the back of her throat.

While her mouth was busy, the hand returned to her hips with bruising force, claws piercing small crescents into her flesh. She whined again before the hand reached up to her throat and god if this was what having a kismesis was like, she never wanted to find someone she hated like this, and she knew this couldn’t be love. It couldn’t be, it was too rough, too against her will, there was no trust and oh god where is that hand going?

Said hand was in fact sliding down her legs, leaving marks and cuts, showing her green blood to the world, as well as removing her clothes. This made Nepeta struggle harder until she cried out when the hand clawed around her inner thighs, ripping the tender flesh into ribbons with the promise for more pain if she didn’t go limp. She quickly complied, for a total of one minute before she realized what he wanted from her.

Gamzee pushed himself somewhat off her, enough so he could pull his own pants off, and she only quickly saw a slick bulge before she felt sick with dread.

He never gave her any warning, just one single look of a predator before her insides screamed as if something was tearing her open from the inside out.

Her hands no longer restrained, Nepeta made no move to go against the kidnapper, but she cried loudly for it to stop, to get out, to stop she was going to tear in two. But he didn’t listen. He just laughed as he sheathed his entire bulge deep in her, and she could feel it searching for the best places and her head began to fog over.

It hurt, she hurt, he was hurting her and he laughed and laughed and laughed, the dull slapping noises similar to being slapped in the face several hundred times. Nepeta writhed under Gamzee and distantly realized he was speaking to her, his voice soft with loud grunts and growls and she realized he was claiming her. Claiming her as his property, as an investment, but she didn’t really listen, her mind in the clouds, far away from the pain.

It felt like several sweeps past before she felt one final thrust deep inside her nook and they both cried out, for different reasons, before Gamzee grabbed her chin again, looking down at her like she was food to eat.

He left her there, legs spread and hands still gripping the sides of the bed from when she thought that it would lessen the pain she felt (it didn’t), her head barely strong enough to move from where it had flopped when Gamzee had released her chin. He left her there, feeling gross and confused and scared, oh so scared.

Nepeta hadn’t realized she was crying until the sob heaved her chest visibly. She couldn’t understand what just happened, but everything hurt and she hurt so badly that when she tried to curl up, she screamed in pain, barely recognizing the purple fluid mixing heavily with the green blood that had once been in her body like it was supposed to be.

She hurt so bad, and no one was around to help her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I uh... I got nothing. Sorry this was a little later than normal.  
> This was kinda the first time I've written something similar to smut for a fic... I hope it was okay(not good, I mean, it wasn't good consensual smut)?


	4. III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm honestly so sorry for not updating for over two weeks!!

John was sure Karkat and he had screamed themselves hoarse from their places in the wall, desperate to save Nepeta as she screamed in pain. Both were shaking as they knew neither could do a thing to free themselves or save the girl who sounded like she was being hurt.

“Nepeta…” Karkat croaked, his voice practically gone from all the shouting to be let out, to save Nepeta, and John could not even comfort him from his place shackled to the small space.

The two boys were forced to stay in between the wall, shackled to prevent escape, for what John could only guess was about three days by how hungry he felt when they heard footsteps approach the solitary confinement room. Neither looked up, too exhausted from constantly shouting for their friend, demanding to know what was happening to her that caused those awful noises to come from her.

They didn’t even want to look up even if they could. Gamzee exuded pleasure at how defeated the two looked, arms practically useless after three days hanging above their heads.

Karkat’s shackles were removed first, and he didn’t react besides crashing down, his entire body much heavier than he remembered. When he had been brought in and shackled, only the tips of his feet briefly made contact with the floor, while John, who was much taller than the troll, could stand okay, but even he crashed down when the shackles finally released his deadweight arms. The sudden return of proper blood circulation caused both boys to whimper in pain. It was much, much worse than simply sleeping on an arm and getting that numb feeling, the pins-and-needles feeling more like sharp jagged knives stabbing every single one of their nerve endings from their shoulder to the tips of their fingers.

Too weak to do anything, they felt themselves being lifted by the back of their shirts, stretching the already worn cloth even more, but luckily not choking them or ripping the shirts. John was barely noticing where they were going, until he recognized a soft noise coming from the room they were being brought into like kittens.

They were dropped as soon as they reached the room with the soft sad noises, and John finally looked up. They were in a room John had never been in before, with a single large, probably queen sized bed, a small bedside table, and nothing else in the room. The bed was messy and it was only then that he saw something shift, the same noises coming from it.

The door closed behind him, but John didn’t worry about it. With a lot of effort and pushing down the pain in his arms, he shakily got to his feet and even more shakily made the few steps to the edge of the bed, freezing when a pained, scared whine came from under the thick blanket and whatever was under the blanket seemed to curl on themselves.

But the whine sounded familiar and in a careful whisper, as his voice hadn’t come back, he dared to speak. “Nepeta?”

The movement froze before John saw one side of the blanket being pulled away from what he guessed was her face.

John’s heart broke at the wide, scared eyes staring up at him, the blanket covering everything under her nose. He saw the overly messed up and knotted hair, the dried light green tear stains.

That was all he could see before Nepeta launched at him, the blanket falling off of her and the two fell over, John not expecting Nepeta to do that and still weak otherwise. Nepeta curled up on him and he could feel the hard shakes that practically vibrated him and he automatically wrapped his arms around her, one hand going for her hair and combing through the knots.

The two heard more shuffling as Karkat seemed to come back to reality and joined the two by the edge of the bed. No one said a thing as Karkat joined the cuddle with John on the bottom. Nepeta made whines a few times when she shifted but that was the loudest noise for several minutes.

John was the first to speak, a little muffled through Nepeta’s hair. “I just got feeling in my arms and you might just make me lose it again.” He tried to keep his tone light and if they looked over at him, they would have seen the smallest forced smile to keep them calm.

Nepeta slid off, quickly into Karkat’s lap and leaning on the other troll heavily. John heard Karkat shush her, and tapped the side of her head in a deliberate fashion. He had learned about troll ways during his two years trapped with them, and watching the two, he wondered if this would be considered their pale romance. But they worked differently, it was supposed to be between two trolls, but for the past two years, all three teens had done it to one another on bad nights.

Finally, after another long period of silence, Nepeta sniffled and rubbed a knuckle over her eyes, and it was only then that either boy had realized she had been crying, fresh green tears leaving stains on her and Karkat’s clothes and down her cheeks.

“I thought I’d never see you again.” John barely missed the whisper.

John approached the two trolls, not speaking as he wiped the wayward tears. “We didn’t know what was going on. Are you okay?”

It was a stupid question, as all of them knew the answer but Nepeta gave a weak, weak smile and nuzzled John’s hand. “Now I am.”

John looked over the girl troll to Karkat and saw him just as upset over Nepeta as John felt. They were both at a loss, wanting to know what happened, but at the same time, they couldn’t let Nepeta possibly freak out again by telling them what happened to her.

It took a lot of time before they saw Nepeta slowly return to something they thought was normal. Her smile was more catlike again and she wiped the rest of her face as she slipped off Karkat’s lap.

“I’m better meow. Sorry.” Her eyes flickered around the room, as if taking it in now.

They both jumped when a squeak came from Karkat, his voice having gone utterly and completely during the three days and even trying to clear his throat didn’t work. John and Nepeta snorted quietly as the loud troll looked angry with himself before whispering.

“I’m fucking starving.” At that moment, John’s stomach grumbled in agreement and the three slowly got up, John reaching to open the door.

They all froze when the door swung before John had touched the doorknob and the three teens found themselves in front of Gamzee. Nepeta made the same scared whine as before and the two boys winced as they felt her nails dig painfully into their arms as she held them. Gamzee gave them a light smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. His eyes looked… hungry, from what John could tell, but he had never been good at reading people.

Gamzee didn’t say a thing, but his eyes glossed over the three of them before he just sauntered away and the way he left sent chills down John’s spine, and he could tell he wasn’t the only one to have had that feeling. He saw Nepeta look like she was trying to hide behind Karkat, but because she was taller than the other troll, it wasn’t very effective. Karkat just looked very confused, like he couldn’t tell what just happened.

John wrapped his arm around Nepeta. “Let’s get some food, yeah? Altogether.” The girl troll seemed to hesitate before she nodded.

Chapter done!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writers block and studying for exams are my excuses, and when I didn't have either, I was writing for other fics... :C  
> Hopefully I'll have a chapter ready for next Friday, since by then I'll be in summer mode.


	5. IV

Six Months Later

Being locked in the wall became a usual thing for John and Karkat after that, whenever Gamzee wanted time alone with Nepeta. Karkat still hated it, but John was slowly accepting it. They couldn’t do anything about it, so why lose his voice knowing no one was going to listen to him?

Nepeta also seemed to accept it, no longer hiding under things for hours after each time. She limped more often as it was obvious Gamzee was constantly rough with her, not caring if he hurt her or not.

John tried sleeping, defeated when he couldn’t find a comfortable way to fall asleep in with his arms hanging above him, and Karkat again demanding to get out of this ‘hellhole of a place, nooksniffer!’

If the other troll had been quiet, the two boys would have realized it was very quiet above them, no sounds of a bed creaking, or moans or cries coming from Nepeta. But Karkat never knew when to shut up, until light assaulted the two of them as Gamzee appeared in front of them, stark naked.

John jumped eyes wide at the alien genitalia that greeted him. Along the sides, where John would assume would be the ribs, were small raised brilliant purple lines, three on each side, and a very flat stomach, not even a belly button there. But John couldn’t focus on the troll’s sides and stomach for long, as lower something kept moving, like it had a mind of its own.

It looked more like a short tentacle, like from a squid or octopus, just minus the suckers on the one side, and the thing tapered similar to a human penis, but the colour was the same colour as the raised lines, a brilliant bright purple, and around the crotch just faded from the purple to a dark troll gray skin tone and John just couldn’t look away, both fascinated and slightly horrified.

He snapped to attention when Gamzee approached the two shackled up, and John felt his heart stop for a few seconds before he realized the adult troll was going over to Karkat, who seemed to have struck dumb, quiet and wide eyes.

The two had known what Gamzee was doing to Nepeta, but to see Gamzee now, fully nude and too close for comfort, it wiped both John and Karkat’s minds of logical thoughts, until it was much too late.

Gamzee took hold of Karkat’s wrists, and with a lewd glance over at John, he pulled the short troll along, and soon John was left alone, shackled to the wall in the dark as his mind played catch up with the rest of him.

He finally understood what was going on when he heard the shouts, pain mixed with anger and fear driving the volume of Karkat’s yells and John winced. His blood seemed to slow in his veins as he finally seemed to understand the situation he and the other two had found themselves trapped in.

He should have probably realized that when he had noticed Nepeta’s stomach get strangely larger, much like a pregnant cat, but he hadn’t realized until just then.

Karkat

Karkat wasn’t one to go easy against anything. It was in his blood, he knew he was always going to fight, but it didn’t mean he was ready when he saw Nepeta laying in a horn pile off to one side of the bedroom he was being carried off into. She was also barely dressed, her clothes mostly just piled onto her, revealing the grub scars and the budding breasts that all female trolls developed as they reached closer to full adulthood, only covering her nook, really.

But Karkat soon couldn’t dwell on his friend laying just a few feet from him, sleeping off the alone time she had been enduring for the last hour, as their kidnapper raised his arms above his head, pulling him up until Karkat was staring eye-to-eye with the highblood.

“You’re so motherfucking cute.” Gamzee said, a rough clawed hand rubbing the side of Karkat’s face, some sort of smile on his face as Karkat twist and cursed, his arms already hurting again as his blood left him.

Suddenly Gamzee’s face darkened, as if Karkat had done something he didn’t approve of, and his claws dug into the side of his face, barely breaking the skin and Karkat winced, a pained growl coming from the back of his throat.

Gamzee tossed Karkat like he weighed nothing, and the air escaped the mutantblood as he fell onto the bed, eyes wide as the naked highblood stalked after him, and finally Karkat’s mouth caught up to him.

“Get the fuck away from me!” He shouted, desperately getting up, but his arms were more or less dead weight to him, and he was too slow anyway.

Gamzee forced himself on him with anger similar to a blackrom movie. His teeth practically ripped apart Karkat’s lips, making him cry out and push uselessly, his cries muffled by the highblood’s lips and teeth. The claws returned, now trickling around his arms and hips, feeling the raised scars and although Karkat tried his best with renewed strength, he was pitifully weak against the adult troll.

When the hand went down, past his pants, Karkat’s breath hitched, eyes wide and he gripped the highblood’s wrist, his own short claws not strong enough to pierce through the skin, but it made the hand pause. But all it did was get his hands snatched again, a possessive growl emanating from Gamzee’s throat as his free hand tugged viciously Karkat’s pants down.

Gamzee looked interested in the colour of Karkat’s bulge, revealing his blood colour with no room for discussion before a lopsided smile appeared.

“I always thought you were going to be special.” He commented, his hand wrapping around Karkat’s bulge, the grin staying as Karkat paled and bucked away.

Karkat fought hard, much harder than Nepeta had, but the most he was able to achieve was pain for himself, as Gamzee would simply squeeze so painfully on his bulge his entire body would spasm from a pain he had never felt before. He couldn’t pierce the tough troll skin, or push the highblood away. He couldn’t really do much, and when the other’s bulge slithered around his own, he was losing energy to buck away.

Gamzee had his way with Karkat, the young troll quickly losing his voice from the previous shouting as well as the crying out in pain as the older troll’s bulge quickly constricted. Gamzee told him to sheath, and when the pain of ignoring became too great, he quickly hid his bulge. But he wasn’t done yet.

With his arms high above his head, and his legs unable to knock together, Gamzee pressed himself close and Karkat’s insides twisted at the foreign feeling of a bulge exploring his nook.

Chapter done!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> School's done, so I should be now able to have time to write for this fic. Wish me luck!  
> Now, I also wanna ask, there will be children, so i was wondering if ya'll would want to help me name some of them. I already have a few names, but I want to keep up the four letter and six letter names. If you have names, comment and I will most likely use them.  
> (And just an aside, there are a lot of kids that will be mentioned in passing. To give you an example of how many kids there are, Jane had 5, Tav had 12, and Equius had 9. Not yet gunna tell ya how many John, Nep or Kar get. You'll read about them later)


	6. X

Two weeks later

“Karkat. Come here.”

Karkat stood, trembling from both the fear of approaching the only bed, and from the chill of him leaving the sleeping heat furnaces that were Nepeta and John at the order of their kidnapper.

Gamzee’s eyes were half-lidded, as if he was very close to falling asleep already, but he had an arm raised as if inviting Karkat onto the bed, which he did as gingerly as he could, laying down at the very edge of the bed.

He heard the kidnapper give a heavy sigh before suddenly he snapped his eyes wide as a hand wrapped around Karkat’s chest and pulled him closer to the kidnapper until he was flush against him and the highblood gave a happy sigh.

“You’re so pretty. Such a delicate thing.” Gamzee murmured and Karkat’s skin crawled as his breath skittered along his neck. “Don’t tell the others, but you were always going to be my favourite.”

_Favourite?_  Karkat thought, bewildered. _Favourite what?_

Karkat tried to sleep, but the large hands and claws and the uncomfortably close breath of the highblood made it hard for the young troll to get comfortable enough to sleep. He wondered how Tavros had been able to do it for so long, sleeping pressed up against the troll almost every night.

Thinking about Tavros made Karkat frown. He missed the brownblood, despite how annoying he was and how he never saw the highblood for what he really was. Tavros had acted like a buffer for the younger kidnapped victims, and maybe had been the only reason it had taken Gamzee almost two years before he went after them.

_Great. Now I’ll never get any damn sleep._ He thought bitterly. He couldn’t even toss or turn to find a comfortable position.

But somehow Karkat fell into a long doze, easily awoken by the noises around him, but it was enough for him, for now. He felt, well not well rested, but he didn’t feel like he stayed up the entire night. It still felt weird to wake up with the sun, that the sun wasn’t about to burn them to high hell if they stepped outside (which they weren’t allowed to do anyway, but that was beside the point).

Morning came not soon enough. Karkat felt like he could finally breathe when Gamzee woke up and released him, though he had nipped the back of his neck none too gently before he did so. Karkat practically bolted from the human bed back to John and Nepeta as they seemed to be waking up as well.

John stretched, a silent wide yawn escaping him and even from a couple steps away, Karkat heard the bones crack. He guessed humans were not good with sleeping on no piles, like trolls.

Or like most trolls, as Nepeta just stretched like a cat with a sleepy smile. Karkat guessed it was because of how Nepeta lived before being taken. She had been living in some big forest back on Alternia, in some big ass cave with her lusus, far from most other trolls. Unless they were stupid enough to walk through the forest for some fucking dumb reason.

Nepeta seemed to be more happy now, constantly smiling, no matter how soft it was. Gamzee had switched his attentions to Karkat since Nepeta’s stomach started to grow, and at first Karkat was angry with that fact, he couldn’t help his anger for that, he didn’t know why she was getting fat. It wasn’t until there was a day’s lull and the three were allowed to rest that Karkat was told what was happening.

“She’s pregnant.” John had told him, eying the troll girl’s stomach so cautiously, it was like how a highblood troll would look upon a lowblood with some form of weapon in their hand while working. “That’s the only explanation.”

“The fuck is a pregnant?” Karkat and Nepeta had asked, though Nepeta was a little more curious and less vulgar in phrasing.

“It’s when… Uhm, it’s I think when, you know…” He gestured at her stomach unhelpfully. “There’s babies in there!”

“Babies?” Nepeta asked. “What are those?”

“Ugh!” John groaned, grabbing at his hair almost in defeat. “Small versions of adults. Children, you know, what we used to look like when we were like, born?”

“Oh, you mean wigglers!” Nepeta clarified before she fully understood, along with Karkat, what was happening to her.

There weren’t many troll pregnancies, what with the cullbots and the Mother Grub back on Alternia, but it wasn’t like they never happened before. Most trolls, when the wigglers are growing in their own body, have them grow for about four months before they can leave the mother body. It was also said that depending on the blood colour, that would also depend how fertile a troll would be, with the average wiggler amount being about 3 or 4 a troll pregnancy, sometimes more sometimes less. A small part of Karkat wondered how many wigglers were growing in Nepeta, before the rest of him felt disturbed by the thought.

Nepeta stretched again, a squeak of a yawn coming out as she did so before her hand went to her stomach.

“How far are you now?” John asked, looking down at her stomach as well.

“Soon. Any day I think.” Nepeta answered and John looked surprised.

“But it hasn’t even been five months yet!” He said and the two trolls looked at him, confused.

“Yeah, the little wigglers don’t stay for too long, no more than… 20 weeks I guess? Why, how long are humans carrying their little wigglers?”

“About 9 months on average.” John answered and Karkat felt his eyes widen.

“9 months? That’s fucking ridiculous. What happens when the things pupate?” He demanded and John did a double take.

“Pupate? What are you, butterflies?” Both trolls gave blank looks.

“No, we’re trolls. We’ve told you already.” Nepeta answered, a little slowly as if John had taken a tumble and lost his goddamn mind.

“The fuck is a butterfly?” Karkat demanded.

“What’s a…” John looked speechless, shaking his head. “It’s this little pretty bug, and they all have cool different wings and fly, but they’re really tiny, barely the length of your middle finger.”

Karkat narrowed his eyes. The description sounded familiar, but neither he or Nepeta seemed to be able to remember what it would have been like on Alternia.

“Can we eat please? With these little things in me, I feel like I haven’t had something to eat in days.” Nepeta brought up, patting her stomach as they all heard the quiet grumble. John smiled and stood up, helping Nepeta up, Karkat soon after.

It isn’t often the three get to spend the say together with no highblood in sight, but Karkat inwardly revelled in being alone with John and Nepeta. For the past few months, since Tavros’s death basically, it’s been rare for all three to be together, and he hadn’t realized how much he cared about the other two until they left his sight for, sometimes, days without end.

He slid a hand into Nepeta’s, almost without thinking, but if it bothered her, she didn’t comment, a warm look on her face that was most likely because of the little creatures growing inside her.

When he slid his other hand into John’s on the other hand, he wasn’t sure what caused the warm look from the human. Karkat pretended to ignore it, acting like he was doing that to drag them out of the room, not because he liked how their hands felt in his, no way.

And there was no way his face was burning with a blush as he walked ahead of them, pulling on their hands slightly. Absolutely not.

Chapter done!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The beginning of this chapter has been written since I started this fic. This is where I even came up with the name of it. Back when I was just forming it, it was originally gunna just be an omegaverse fic, with all the trolls as humans before figuring it would possibly be easier to do trolls as trolls with earth having an omegaverse society (jokes on me, both are confusing in my own head since I've never done either troll society or omegaverse hah ^^' )  
> Anyway, this is more of a filler chapter, or respite for the characters (and myself) before going right back in.


	7. VI

John was a little tied up when Nepeta gave birth to what trolls called wigglers.

He wasn’t sure why Gamzee felt the need to shackle him to the wall when he wanted Karkat. It wasn’t like he was going to do anything, in fact, he was the most compliant among the three of them. But no, he was still strung up, losing all feeling in his arms with every passing minute.

He was given the rundown afterwards, the shouts and what John could only describe as chaos above him making sense as Karkat told him when Gamzee freed him several hours later. But during those hours, John had worried, worried about what could cause those specific shouts. They weren’t the ones he had gotten used to when Gamzee went at it with either Karkat or Nepeta before she got visibly pregnant, or anything Nepeta would normally sound like. It had been a high pitch keen, shouts of pain, before little shrieks that sounded nothing like anything John had ever heard before, in voices that were in no way familiar.

Karkat had told him that, though he didn’t know when it started, Nepeta wasn’t able to stand, her legs unable to stop shaking as whatever the wigglers were began their journey out of the troll’s uterus (if they had the same names for their biology as with humans, in any case) to be birthed, which started the shouts of pain. She had been desperate for some respite over the harsh contractions she had been getting, writhing and using many of Karkat’s own colourful vocabulary words as the troll babies seemed to demand to get out.

He said that he tried his best to help her, holding her hand (“She has a fucking grip, nearly broke my wrist.” He said, rubbing the hand) and tried to keep her mind off the pain, but his efforts weren’t much help.

But after a while, several hours for John trapped down in the wall one storey below, Nepeta had finished, with three new babies off in one of the rooms that had once been open then closed to the three of them. Karkat had seemed to get a little disgusted by the wigglers, not giving John enough information on the troll babies even when he was prompted several times.

Taking it upon himself, he went to the door where Nepeta and her troll babies were holed up and opened the door quickly, slipping in and knowing Karkat was right behind him.

Nepeta was lying on a pile, not wearing anything but a very thin blanket that only covered her stomach and lower. John was slightly fascinated by the lack of nipples on the troll, even though she looked like she had breasts like a human girl or most Omegas when they were with a litter. But his eyes quickly changed to the little raised slashes at her sides, the same as Gamzee, but they were forest green, the same colour as her blood and the shade her eyes were turning. It had actually startled him when he found out trolls’ eyes changed into their blood colour as they got older, having gotten used to the grey and yellow.

A movement at the edge of the pile drew John’s eyes away from Nepeta and he just… stared at the three small brightly coloured things that squirmed at the bottom of the pile, within reach of Nepeta’s feet.

They were bug like, like little brightly coloured grubs that reminded John of the Lion King scene with Timon and Pumba. They had big buggy eyes and segmented bodies, two coloured a brighter green, almost blueish colour, while the other had the same colour as its mother, and even had little buggy stubs as legs. John counted and blinked in surprise; 6 stubs, two on either side of the grubs’ bodies, like an insect back on Earth. Even their eyes, when he looked back at them and noticed they were looking curiously at him and Karkat, were a bit darker than the colour of their body. Among the wild poof of pitch black hair that all trolls seemed to have were tiny, not yet identifiable as what they’d look like when they got older, candy corn coloured horns.

“Hi.” John visibly jumped when Nepeta spoke up softly, her voice still sounding hoarse from the shouting and possible exertion of childbirth, and she looked shy but calm.

John came back to himself, walking further into the room to reach Nepeta. “You okay?” He asked, kneeling besides her in the pile, careful of the new grubs.

“Tired, but I’m good.” Nepeta answered with a smile, all sharp teeth that trolls seemed to have. She shifted and pulled a face. “Better than I was a bit ago, anyway.”

“So these are…?” John gestured to the bug like things he couldn’t understand were baby trolls.

“These are my little wigglers.” Nepeta hummed. “All girls.”

“How can you tell that?” John blurted before he could stop himself.

Nepeta chuckled. “Easy. Their eyes and the horns. A grub’s eyes are smaller if they’re a boy, and a girl’s horns are less defined when they’re just born.”

John looked back at the three grubs. It was true, all three had impossibly big eyes, reminding John of anime girls he had seen when he had been a kid, before Jane had been taken. It felt like a long time ago.

“Oh, okay.” He said.

“At least they aren’t highbloods like him.” Karkat muttered, jerking his head to the door, where somewhere else in the house was Gamzee, doing who knew what when he left the three of them alone. “Less likely to have them getting too bloodthirsty.”

“Mmhmm.” Nepeta hummed with a soft look at her three wigglers. “They’re really cute, aren’t they?”

“Uh…” John looked uncertain. The little things certainly didn’t look ugly, but he wasn’t sure if they looked cute. “Can I use my alien excuse and not answer?”

“They look fucking adorable, but what are you going to do now?” Karkat put in, sitting at the other side of Nepeta and leant his head on her shoulder and it was only then that John felt his own weariness press down on him. “They need, like, a fuckton of attention until they pupate, and that takes almost two full sweeps.”

“Uhm…” Nepeta continued to hum, a slight frown on her face as she looked between herself and her three girls. “I can’t just leave them.”

“Yeah, but what about the Highblood?” Karkat pressed. “I don’t think he’ll be waiting for them to get older. He doesn’t seem to be a troll with much fucking patience.”

There was a long pause as the three teens looked at the baby trolls before John spoke up.

“What are you gunna name them?” He asked, making the trolls jump in surprise before Nepeta looked thoughtful.

“Hmm, well, she’s Tizali.” She pointed to the wiggler with the same blood colour as her, before pointing to one of the others that had as wild hair as Gamzee. “She looks like a Haecca, don’t you think? But I don’t know about her.” She pointed to the smallest of the three.

“How about Caliba?” Karkat suggested after a long thoughtful pause and Nepeta’s face brightened at the name, looking thoughtfully at the smallest wiggler before nodding.

“Caliba sounds fantastic! Thank you, Karkitty!” Nepeta said with a bright smile, cooing to her new children until they were within reach.

She brought them close to her still exposed breasts, holding them almost protectively, cooing softly at them until the three started to close their eyes and fall asleep.

“Caliba, Tizali, and Haecca. I like those names.” She murmured.

Chapter done!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Troll pregnancies are a foreign thing to me and I dug myself a hole by making troll pregnancies a thing in this fic... I'm trying. I don't think I'll ever write the actual birthgiving for any of the kids, I don't yet trust my skill at writing something like that, and also for the simple fact I am not comfortable writing that yet.  
> I also spent a lot of time just staring at baby grubs on google to help me with how to write how they would look. Little wigglers are hard, I've realized.  
> Anyway, say hello to Haecca, Tizali and Caliba. They will be around for a while, but mostly in the background.


	8. VII

Nepeta spent about a month in the room with her three wigglers, barely leaving the room besides getting food or going to the bathroom. John and Karkat visited when they could, John more to watch the troll babies curiously as they grew to almost the size of a small loaf of bread, much faster than a human baby would at only a month. He also saw that the three were growing their own unique horns, though they were similar to their parents in some ways.

Tizali, while being the same blood as Nepeta, had more wavy points to her horns, looking more like the swirls of Gamzee’s horns. Haecca, the largest troll baby of the three, had her horns look like floppy cat ears in a way, like they were always bent forward instead of straight up like Nepeta’s. Caliba, the smallest and apparently the youngest of the triplets, on the other hand, John couldn’t tell what her horns were going to look like. They were both different, the horn on her right side looking like Nepeta’s, while the other looked like Gamzee’s.

Karkat said that could happen sometimes, where the troll horns would look completely different, or sometimes like a combination of the two (or more, John learnt) trolls, which reminded John of eye colours for humans, before remembering the troll that had kidnapped him back on earth, the one that looked like they had a fork and knife as their horns.

When it had been a month since the baby trolls were born, Gamzee had appeared in the room and John and Karkat were barred from the room again.

To occupy the two boys, they’ve taken to cleaning the house, or even just talking. John would often find himself curled up with Karkat, normally with the smaller troll wrapped in his hold as they would talk about anything and everything they could think of.

It was during one of these cuddle sessions when John felt something was wrong. He had been feeling warm for most of the past couple hours, steadily getting worse as time went on.

John knew about heats, how could he not when his father had given horror stories to him since it was found out John was an Omega? But he never knew how they started, until then. His body felt itchy, steadily becoming agonizing with the touches and the extra warmth of Karkat against his chest, and the thin clothes he wore and the threadbare blanket that covered the two in the cool room. John tried to shift around without bothering Karkat, but when he had pulled the other closer to his chest and Karkat froze, John knew he was doing a poor job.

“Hey, what the fuck is wrong, John?” The short troll asked, twisting his head around to see John, his eyes widening as he did so. “Woah, you’re fucking red.”

“I am?” John could even tell his voice was strained. God it was warm, he could barely stand it. Were heats supposed to feel so intense? He didn’t want to tell Karkat, not ready to try to explain what an Omega was or even a heat.

“Yeah.” Karkat twisted the rest of his body until they were facing each other with so little space between them and wow the grey in his eyes were almost melting into blood red how could John have not noticed that yet? “You okay, man?”

“Y-yeah, course. Just feeling a bit warm, is all.” John muttered, his body and his mind in practically two different places and he couldn’t understand what was happening, except that Karkat was really close and his instincts were yelling at him but he couldn’t understand a word of what they were yelling at him to do.

“Then take off the fucking blanket, asshole.” Karkat pulled the thin thing closer to him until Karkat was under the blanket only, but it didn’t do much to help John.

It was also then that John started to feel overly uncomfortable, the pile they had been lying on feeling similar to that story of the princess and the pea. John couldn’t tell what was making it not comfortable, but it was beginning to get annoying. He shifted again, pushing and pulling on the clothes that made the pile, eyes darting around the room they were in for extra comfort, but found none.

John hadn’t realized he had made a noise of annoyance until Karkat put a hand on his shoulder.

“John, what the hell? This isn’t like you.”

“I’m fine, I swear. Just…” John searched for words while his mind was splitting in confusing directions until it seemed his Omega instincts took control. He wasn’t sure how the switch happened, but he found himself leaning forward quickly, pressing his lips to Karkat.

Karkat stilled, but didn’t pull away as John wrapped a hand around him, tangling his fingers in the wild fluff that was the troll’s hair. He took control while the shorter teen slowly unfroze, tilting their heads and deepening the kiss, still as soft as before.

Karkat was the one to pull away, looking at John in confusion. “What the fuck?” He didn’t sound angry, just confused, which if John had been in his right mind and not First Heat, would have found that to be kinda funny.

John had to say something, he knew he had to, but he wasn’t sure how to say it.

“I… In heat. Everything’s so warm, and god I need something.” John found himself saying, and even he couldn’t blame the bewildered look Karkat gave him. John just groaned, desperate for anything to stop the warmth from getting worse. “Please, Kar. Help.”

“Help with fucking what?”

If John wasn’t already warm everywhere, he was sure he would have blushed at what he wanted Karkat to help him with.

“Mate with me.” There. He said it, and while Karkat froze, John squirmed, pulling at his clothes and shifting uncomfortably, trying to find some sort of reprieve. But he knew, from his father’s stories, the only short reprieve was during mating. He knew mating would make things better, at least for a short little while, and with how warm he felt and how uncomfortable he was, he would have accepting anything to feel better for a couple hours.

“What?” Karkat said, and with a huff, John pushed himself on top of Karkat, straddling his hips, the cool air doing nothing to cool him down.

“Please, Kar. Mate with me, please.” John could hear the whine in his voice as he leant over Karkat. “Please, it’s unbearable.”

Before Karkat could answer, John pressed his lips back on his, an almost pleading sounding moan escaping his throat, and Karkat seemed to cave, his body relaxing under John.

John went about it quickly, deepening the kiss before pushing it forward, hands hovering over Karkat’s sweatshirt, always hovering. While the heat was making him push, John still wanted to take some time, to not push too far.

Karkat quickly took the lead, pushing up John’s shirt and over his head, his eyes looking curiously at John’s skin, hands and claws lightly tracing his sides as if looking for the raised coloured things that John had so far seen on Nepeta and Gamzee, before making John temporarily lose track of his thoughts when Karkat curiously pinched his nipple.

John gave a quick intake of breath, every touch and trace feeling like white hot flames on his body, spreading warmth from the point of contact. John was starting to wonder if he hated heats at the moment or not.

John helped Karkat out of his sweatshirt, knowing what he was going to see but still surprised by the blood red raised sides, as well as small lighter gray scars littering between the raised sides. John distantly guessed it was Gamzee’s work, but the thought fled as soon as he thought it because Karkat had brought his sharp, sharp troll teeth to John’s neck, lightly grazing it and wow John thought he had been ticklish but that was practically magical. It still gave him chills similar to being ticklish, but instead of wanting to evade, John wanted more.

Getting the pants off took a bit more time than they had first thought, but John, still straddling Karkat, got his off first and if he hadn’t been blushing before, he must have been now. Karkat stared, almost in wonder, at John’s lower region, hands moving and exploring everything between John’s thighs. When he saw some touches got John to make certain sounds, John saw how Karkat’s face lit up in curiosity.

When he found John’s entrance, already slick with the help of his heat, John swore he saw Karkat truly understand what John want of him. His claws were more careful, having known from the past few years that John’s skin was much weaker than troll skin, and he pushed a finger in slowly. John quite nearly lost it, lips pressed on the crook connecting Karkat’s jaw from his neck, humming against the grey skin, his own hands on the hem of Karkar’s pants. The troll took the hint and lifted his hips up, allowing John to take his pants and everything off.

John had seen an idea of what troll genitalia would look like, but even so, seeing Karkat’s tentacle-like thing, blood red and already looking slimy was still something to see. His hands went to it, a surprised noise as the tentacle sought his hand and wrapped around it, causing both teens to gasp.

But it wasn’t long before John’s heat came back to mind and he panted into Karkat’s ear. “Mate with me, please.”

Karkat looked at him closely, as if asking for more permission and John just went back to kissing him, a small whine emanating from his throat. Karkat didn’t need to be told again. He removed his finger from John’s entrance just as gently as he had entered before the two guided his tentacle. It all but actually slithered in and John felt weird. It was smooth and slimy, almost as slimy as the slick that practically dripped on John’s thighs. The tentacle thing was small and thin, but moved around a lot, searching John’s insides as if it was curious. Then the thing had brushed against something that made John see stars, and his hips knocked against Karkat’s. Karkat gave a hiss in surprise, and while John was still seeing stars, he felt them flip, until John was under Karkat.

Karkat was soft and gentle, completely different from his normal attitude, and very quiet, besides the grunts and soft moans. For someone who shouted almost every day, he sure knew how to keep quiet.

John felt himself reach closer and closer to an edge, before he felt himself fall, vision filling with white as he came, his entrance clenching around the tentacle and Karkat swore, before he most likely came in John as well. It was uncomfortable, feeling the liquid that wasn’t slick inside him, but at the same time, it seemed to soothe the heat inside him.

The two panted, Karkat removing his tentacle from inside John and flopping to John’s side. For the moment, John felt content, breathing heavily and the heat dulled enough to be bearable for the next little while. Karkat nuzzled into John’s neck, sounding and feeling just as relaxed as John was.

Chapter done!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My first actual, like, smut with actual consent(though from what I can tell, when it comes to Heats and consent, that's a little iffy as a whole depending on the author). I don't know if it's any good... Hope it is. I'm honestly clueless when it comes to writing sex, consent or non-con.  
> I'm not entirely sure how long this fic will be. I'm thinking there will be a few big time skips, and I plan to end it when the three are in their late 20s, so it means a lot can happen.


	9. VIII

At the same time, in a different part of the building, Nepeta held Tizali closely in barely contained worry. At the door stood Gamzee, looking more like a purple silhouette with vibrant purple eyes peering at her and their grubs.

Haecca and Caliba were by Nepeta’s feet, sensing the worry emanating from their mother, but the cat girl was more worried about her own blood coloured daughter, for some bizarre reason. She had the notion Gamzee would just kill her Tizali and that thought, as irrational as it was, was blaring alarms to protect the small grub.

But Gamzee just sat very far from where Nepeta and their grubs were, as if keeping a respectable distance from the female trolls. It was like the silhouette gained clarity, and Nepeta saw a soft expression on Gamzee’s face as he looked at the three little wigglers with what looked like a mix of pride and affection.

There was silence surrounding them, had been for several minutes, and continued, going from tense to awkward by the time Gamzee cleared his throat.

“Do they, ah, do they have names?” He asked, surprising Nepeta and she relaxed her grip on Tizali as she nodded.

Gamzee looked curious, and his expression openly asked what the grubs’ names were.

She nodded and lifted her hold on Tizali as she started to speak. “Tizali.” She nudged the smallest with her leg. “Caliba, and.” She nudged the oldest with her other leg. “Haecca.”

“Motherfucking wonderful names.” Gamzee seemed to praise, and the words made Nepeta blush. “May I?”

Nepeta looked apprehensive as Gamzee approached, his hand going towards Caliba to pick her up, but he didn’t touch her until Nepeta answered. She nodded minutely, and the highblood gently picked up the smallest grub, holding her with practiced ease, as if he had held many grubs tenderly before.

She watched as Gamzee ran a finger over the squish that made up a grub’s body, noting how Caliba squeaked happily and saw her lean into the hand. Tizali and Haecca looked over at the squeak with what could only be questioning squeaks of their own before Tizali bumped her head against Nepeta’s arm, as if demanding the same treatment, with Haecca bumping her leg.

Despite herself, Nepeta laughed at her daughters, reaching down to run her fingers lightly over both of their squish. She actually jumped when Gamzee gave a similar laugh as he watched, a calm mirth overcoming his face that Nepeta had never seen on him before, in the entire sweep and a half she and the boys had been taken. She had always seen him distant, or scary and painful, and to see him with a genuine smile, a happy, not sadistic, smile, to say Nepeta was surprised would be a gross understatement.

“She is so fucking small.” Gamzee remarked, looking back at their child in his hands, resting part of her in his lap as he sat cross-legged.

“Well, she was the last. But I think she’ll grow as big as Haecca.” Nepeta guessed with a warm smile to Caliba.

“Oh, she will. She will look so beautiful when she pupates.” Gamzee remarked, a smile that Nepeta couldn’t read directed at her. “Just like her mother.”

Nepeta blushed a bright green and ducked her head, as if fascinated by Haecca’s puff of hair while she tried to make sense of the obvious compliment.

Gamzee chuckled but then the two trolls were left in more silence, only broken by their children’s squeaks and cries of demands, but the silence was a content one, not tense, not uncomfortable in any way, and Nepeta found herself relaxing and finding the presence of the highblood calming, although there was a small nagging in the back of her mind that she ignored completely in favour of enjoying the feeling of peace she had not truly felt in sweeps.

John

After the first day finding out he was starting his first heat, John quickly hid himself away, using the lull in his body from the sex he had had with Karkat to think coherently enough to know he had to find a good place to hide for however long heats lasted. He knew they were pretty short, from his memories of when his dad would lock himself in his Heat Room back when his father still got heats.

Turns out, the best place was the room next to the confined room John had found himself spending a lot of time in when Gamzee didn’t want him around. The room was dark but cozy, overly padded, with a little dip for a nest and if John had not been in the throes of his heat, he would have found it weird how similar it was to the Heat Room back home, but with warmer tones in lighting, or a familiar scent that tickled John’s memories distantly.

But he wasn’t exactly in his right mind. John just saw fluffy, fluffy pillows and what looked like heaven’s own blankets strewn about, and saw the dip looking oh so comfortable. He had shut the door quietly, sighing in relief at the locking mechanism that looked sturdy enough to keep the trolls out when he wanted to be alone. He distantly wondered how he had never found this room before, but the thought flapped away as he felt his skin itch like before and knew the feeling of sex was leaving his system.

John locked the door quickly before sprinting to the nesting dip, grabbing at all the blankets he could as he did to make the best, most comfortable nest he could think of.

It took several hours, around the time he was edging towards the end of his first heat, when John noted how familiar, and nostalgic, the scent that lingered all around the room actually was to John. Each person – troll and human – that John had met in his life had distinct scents, especially Omegas back on Earth. His father, he remembered, smelt like chocolate and shaving cream, the smell heightened during his few heats that John could remember, and the scent in the room, mixing with his own, was as nostalgic as that. There was a scent of chocolate and cotton candy, mixed with something John couldn’t exactly put a finger on, but his mind flashed to a pretty blue bow in short, wavy black hair from a time when John watched a play of Alice in Wonderland his sister was in.

The realization hit just as powerful as the heat had been as he placed the scent, and he forgot how to breathe for a couple seconds, tears pricking his eyes unbidden as he realized what he should have realized the day he had found the room. Of course Jane would have been allowed a room for when she went on her heats; it wasn’t like John was the first Omega Gamzee took. The room had been filled with her scent, slowly mixing with his own, but it still clung to every surface, deep inside the fabrics and padding and John just wanted to bury his face deep in the blankets, in the last shred of comfort his older sister had unknowingly left him.

Chapter done!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ya know, when I started this fic, I thought I wouldn't have to know much about Omegaverse lore (specifically puberty with Omegas and the such). Future me laughs at past me's naivety.  
> Though I am basing some parts of Omegaverse from a specific fic and my own tweaks here and there, I'm also using this fanguide someone had written that is fucking fantastic on the entire subject of A/B/O universe and tbh, I'm so thankful I found that thing. If you're curious about it, just check my bookmarks, should be on the first page.


	10. IX

1 year later

Karkat fought with himself as he walked towards Gamzee. He hadn’t been as helpful around the house like John and Nepeta, still yet to get pregnant as John would say, so he knew he had to do this.

Gamzee saw him and must have seen the look Karkat gave him because he quickly wrapped his arms around the mutantblood and brought him to the bedroom, leaving the door slightly ajar to let the others know what they were doing.

Karkat wrapped his arms around the older troll and stood on his toes to kiss him right under the jaw, sucking lightly until the purple hickey was prominent under the dark grey skin and smiled grimly internally as the highblood groaned, his hands roving the younger’s back, quickly sliding under the sweatshirt. Karkat’s breath hitched as the cold hands froze the small of his back, but he continued to kiss Gamzee along the neck, too short to reach any higher than his chin, even on his toes.

His mind took this time to yell at him, telling him he shouldn’t be doing this so willingly, but he ignored those thoughts with a growl, and he pushed Gamzee onto the bed none-too-gently and quickly stripped his sweatshirt and pants before following the highblood, his hands making themselves busy by exploring Gamzee’s chest under his loose shirt. He straddled the older troll and went about catching his lips, allowing Gamzee to nip painfully at his lips and tasting another tongue invading his mouth.

Karkat’s breath hitched again when Gamzee rolled his hips under him and he felt the highblood’s bulge press heavily into his own crotch, covered only by Gamzee’s pants and Karkat’s boxers. Knowing Gamzee was always impatient when it came to sex, one of Karkat’s hands went down to Gamzee’s waistband and quickly pulled them down, revealing the highblood’s bulge, slick and erect and already hungry for Karkat. He quickly removed his last piece of clothing, throwing the clothes into a pile by the bed.

Hands roamed his body possessively, claws moving lightly around his back, not yet digging in but he knew they would soon enough.

Without much warning, Karkat felt Gamzee’s bulge push into him and he pushed back tears as it hurt, painfully so whenever Gamzee had sex with him. Karkat wondered if it was always supposed to hurt like this, and he was reminded just how much it hurt, it fucking hurt having sex, nothing like how the romcoms he used to watch made it out to be, or when he and John, or even Nepeta had sex.

But he wanted it, okay? He _wanted_ Gamzee to do whatever he wanted with him, to hurt him, to fuck him until he couldn’t breathe. He would get over the pain; he always did, so why would today be any different? Why did it always feel like he was slowly losing himself with every violent thrust Gamzee made?

He hadn’t realized he was crying until Gamzee swiped them away, his claws barely missing his eyes, the highblood’s own eyes shining angrily and Karkat quickly returned to pleasuring him, blinking furiously to stop the rest of his tears from falling.

Karkat rolled his hips in the way that somehow made the pain manageable as Gamzee’s bulge hit his perfect spot. Both gave loud moans before Karkat made it his mission to make sure Gamzee’s bulge hit that spot over and over again, taking away the pain for the moment.

Gamzee, in the middle of his heat, then began roaming his hands over Karkat’s now marred back, raking new lines over scarring lines and Karkat arched his back in both pleasure and to futilely get away from his hands, but like every other time he tried, the claws seemed to be attached to his back, possessively so.

Soon Karkat felt pressure building at the pit of his stomach and he knew he was close, but he knew from past experience that Gamzee had to come first before he could release.

He didn’t have long to wait. Apparently Gamzee was nearing his limit as well, as he viciously flipped them so Karkat was being pushed hard into the old mattress and Gamzee’s thrusts came harder and faster, each thrust feeling like a knife stabbing his insides as he began to see everything in flashes of pink and white until he heard Gamzee shout and felt him shoot everything he had deep inside him, hands scrambling for purchase as Karkat quickly came as well, a cry escaping him.

Gamzee soon collapsed on him with a content little sigh, his claws still puncturing Karkat’s sides and his bulge still deep inside him. Both panted heavily together for a couple moments before Gamzee withdrew, getting up and simply leaving Karkat lying exhausted on the bed, lightheaded and in pain and feeling more alone than before, until the shy Nepeta came in and cuddled the mutantblood, who couldn’t tell when he started to cry again as the greenblood papped him over and over again.

John

John was in charge of watching the kids for the next week. He saw Nepeta’s oldest three crawl around curiously, often stopping by their newer siblings, or John’s twin boys.

When John had gotten pregnant, during his second heat, he had again found Karkat first, trusting the mutant alien to make him feel better, at least for a while. During the heat, he had also been visited by Gamzee, and despite the larger, older troll having hurt Karkat and Nepeta numerous times, when he had laid with John, it was everything for John’s heat-induced hazed filled mind to clear as pleasure overrode his thoughts. It had reminded him of the stories he had read, back home, about the strong Alphas taking whatever and whoever they wanted, and the idea that Gamzee was like an Alpha from those stories actually helped in a bizarre way.

So when he found out he was pregnant, he wasn’t exactly sure which troll had done it. He then had spent his first trimester worried about what the litter would look like, how many he would have – god he was too young to be a mother! Screw natural biology – and if they would crawl out of the womb like Nepeta’s children.

He didn’t have to worry so much about the delivery, and was met with his twins, Joel and Jaye. They looked mostly human, though with a more ashen skin colour so they seemed to look perfectly in the middle between John’s pale skin and the trolls’ grey skin, but the one thing that stood out, was the twins’ genitalia. John thought they looked mostly like a Beta male’s, although they seemed to taper more like the bulges.

Another difference was their eyes. Like trolls, the twins’ eyes were grey coloured in the irises and John wondered if they would change colour.

The one thing he didn’t know was if they had human blood or troll blood or some mutation of the two, but wasn’t about to hurt his babies to find out, thinking he would wait for one of them to hurt themselves to find out.

Tizali scuttled closer to Jaye, both babies looking at one another with huge eyes, though it was hard to say if Tizali was looking any different because her eyes had always been huge. Haecca and Caliba were with their siblings, the second litter as John was fond of thinking, two boys and two girls from Nepeta’s repeated explanation as he still couldn’t see a difference between the genders for troll babies.

John watched the four youngest carefully. Nepeta and Gamzee had picked out the names this time, even though the second litter seemed to have been more Nepeta with Karkat based on the bodies of the grubs. The girls’, named Leopat and Fefeta, blood was similar looking to dark cherries, a dark red that looked black at night, while the boys, Antony and Mutius, were closer to their mother in terms of blood colour, though still looking yellowish-green.

The nine babies were by far the most interesting things that never failed to bring some new thing to the table among the three teens, particularly John’s cross-species twins. At only a couple weeks, they were smaller than Nepeta’s new litter, even though the four were born just under a week ago. John went over to pick up Jaye, ruffling the long hair of Tizali who gave him an affronted look at her playmate being removed from her vicinity.

“Sorry, but they are half human. They need their mother’s milk.” John said in a sing-song way as he wandered over to Joel to feed the twins.

Chapter done!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first half of this chapter is kinda what spawned this story in the first place, and it took me a while to decide when to put it in.  
> I'm now starting the big jumps, because not much happens, besides the noticing in attitudes towards Gamzee.  
> I think I'm ending this soon. There should be an epilogue, but don't know when that will be.


	11. X

The three had created a system, a schedule that had worked so far since Nepeta had thought it up, to take care of the small group of growing children among them. John would watch them most of the time, having to feed his twins himself ( _Hey, humans are mammals, we need our parent’s milk_ ), then Nepeta would watch and play with them after John’s twins were fed and Karkat would watch the little grubs during the night while the others slept.

Gamzee occasionally joined John or Nepeta when they were with the babies, playing with the little ones or simply watching how the other two looked after the babies. So far, Karkat had only been in the same room with him and the others’ kids twice, finding him sitting in the corner like a shadow the took Karkat hours each time to not be spooked over whenever he turned to see a hulking figure sitting silently. The babies didn’t find him scary at all, normally crawling over with happy squeaks or cries (depended on the species, god human wigglers are _loud_ ) as Gamzee moved them gently away, not playing with them as he kept showing up when it was bedtime for the babies.

Karkat was holding one of John’s boys when Gamzee appeared in the doorway, watching with an unreadable expression before scooping to pick up Tizali and Fefeta, the girls squealing and squeaking excitedly. The highblood approached Karkat before speaking, a few steps away from him.

“Do you need help?” He asked, holding the two almost lovingly as they cooed and chirped amongst each other.

Karkat was about to say no when he paused, mouth open to refuse before wordlessly nodding. No matter how long he had been on night duty with these wigglers, it took forever to get most of them to sleep. John’s twins were simple, they slept a lot it seemed and the sight of approaching the large mattress made them even sleepier. It was Nepeta’s brood that was the challenge. They needed to be held and Karkat could only safely hold three and while he held three, the other four were playing and squeaking and squealing and often waking the others up before Karkat could get to them. The biggest troublemakers were definitely the eldest of both groups, Haecca and Antony, who both had the loudest noises and sharpest teeth, often biting their siblings or Karkat in fun.

So he accepted the help, hoping with the highblood’s help, all of them would finally go to bed around the same time.

Gamzee approached the mattress, still holding Tizali and Fefeta and put them on the bed. It was simple getting all of them on the mattress, and soon the highblood and Karkat were on either side of it, within reach of all the babies on the bed. Joel and Jaye were already making their baby yawns, their movements slowing, so Karkat didn’t worry about them falling asleep, turning his attention to the three closest to him, Haecca, Leopat and Caliba. Picking up one at a time, he had Leopat in his lap as he held the other two in his arms, rocking slowly and steadily as he watched Gamzee surprisingly does the same with the other four. Begrudgingly Karkat had to admit to himself Gamzee was good at calming and getting the wigglers to sleep and for the first time in months there were only the sounds of nine babies sleeping and two trolls breathing as they watched the brood.

Karkat kept glancing over at Gamzee, a confused look on his face before he couldn’t help but ask. “How’d you know how to get them to sleep so fucking easily?”

Gamzee shrugged, an amused smile on his face. “Motherfucking miracles, my good bro.”

Karkat rolled his eyes but didn’t speak, turning his attention back to the babies. Nepeta’s eldest three were just over half a sweep old by now, nearing their first sweep in a couple months. By their second sweep they would pupate into trolls and Karkat wondered if they would be like their mother or their father and he honestly hoped they would have their mother’s kindness, and if they got anything from the highblood, it would be the intense height or his quiet side. Anything but that scary Highblood shit he occasionally returned to when one of the three teens did something to somehow anger him.

John’s twins went by weird ages, John saying they were closing in on their first birthday, causing an argument between him and the other two trolls on dates and years and shit like that that confused the fuck out of Karkat until he retreated under the banner “Fuck it I don’t care” and Nepeta agreeing with him, the human years so much shorter than the two had thought before.

The second group of Nepeta’s children were younger than John’s twins, but only by a few weeks, and god Karkat had not been a fan of both Nepeta and John being pregnant at the same time. It made him feel left out, and why he had been desperate to bear his own spawn from any of them. He wondered why Nepeta became a chill, super happy and calm girl, even when something that would normally get her annoyed or at least worried when she wasn’t with children. He also wondered why it took so long for human babies to be born, even after the many lessons John tried to explain to him and Nepeta, though those constantly ended with too many questions on what the fuck were alphas and other brain-breaking questions that left all three of them tired and leaving it.

Gamzee shifted, startling Karkat back into the present as he turned to give the highblood a scowl for scaring him. Gamzee laughed quietly, shrugging in apology.

It slowly turned into a weekly thing for Gamzee to visit the children and help Karkat get them to sleep, actually allowing Karkat to sleep during the night as well, leaving him more energized in the day times and not as dead on his feet as most of the rest of the week leaves him. At least, until the eldest three turned a full sweep and they acted how John’s twins acted when they saw the bed, leaving Karkat with the youngest four to get them to sleep, which was now much easier than trying to juggle seven to get to sleep at once without waking the others.

In the daytime Karkat would normally do some of the chores, like cleaning a portion of the rooms or sit and talk with whoever was not taking care of the children, which was more or less of the time John.  They would talk about anything, from how the kids are growing, to something one of them missed about their worlds (it was mostly John who brought this up, Karkat was honest when he said there were very few things he cared about his home planet) or talk about how Karkat still hadn’t gotten pregnant.

He honestly wanted to have his own kids in the mix, to see how they would look, to see what having them inside him as they grew into little grubs. He didn’t like how the only mix that were his were Nepeta’s four youngest. He wanted to have his own, his own to grow inside of him, not from inside one of the others.

But until he had his own kids, Karkat was happy to take care of the nine already in the house.

Chapter done!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Even after 4, close to 5 years living together, you'd think the trolls and John would understand the other's world, but nope, Karkat and the trolls are stubborn and, well, not exactly narrow minded, but couldn't understand things so utterly alien. At least John understands a bit more about trolls than the trolls understand about humans.


	12. XI

John hadn’t meant to be snooping, he really hadn’t.

But when he found the house empty of Gamzee and he himself wasn’t busy (Karkat was resting after a long night of wrestling with the youngest litter and Nepeta was on baby duty) so when he heard noises coming from a room that held neither, John’s curiosity was piqued.

It was one of the rooms in the basement, where John normally only went down to when he felt his heat coming. It was a large room with many doors that the three weren’t allowed in, and behind one of them, John heard something. He quietly walked over to it, testing the knob to find it unlocked, and curious, he opened the door.

It was a brightly lit room not so different from the baby room upstairs, and John was surprised to see children, about fifteen in total from the ages of eight to four. One of the oldest, a girl that looked mostly human besides the similar ashen skin tone that his own children had, and brilliant ice blue eyes with yellow rings, looked over with wide eyes as she gasped.

“Mama?” She asked, and silence filled the room as they all noticed John at the entrance.

“Who?” John asked, looking around himself. He wasn’t the girl’s mother, he was sure of that. She seemed to have been older than he had been saved from Earth, but he couldn’t deny she looked very similar to her own children and even looked very human. She had no horns, paler skin, and most of her eyes were white, not yellow or black like a troll’s eyes.

“You look like Mama.” The girl’s figure slumped and John was surprised when another similar looking girl, most likely her twin or something, wrapped an arm around her. “Sorry, mister.”

“I look like your mother? Do you know her name? Maybe I can help?” John asked, something about this confused John, like he wasn’t actually in Gamzee’s home but in some sort of apartment building and stumbled into the wrong room.

“She was called Janey by Daddy.” A younger troll, sounding like a boy with what looked like wavy arrows as his horns, answered for the girls and John did a double take.

“Jane? Jane had kids?” John asked aloud and the two twins nodded, looking at him with open curiosity.

“Why do you look like Mama?” The first girl asked and John couldn’t figure out how to speak for several seconds. He had now just met Jane’s children. Jane who died before he arrived from an alien disease. Jane who he hadn’t seen since he had been just a little older than the oldest in the room.

“I uh…” He stammered a few times before finding his words. “I’m John, I was her brother.”

“Brother?” The second girl looked curious before brightening. “Uncle! You’re our uncle!”

John nodded mutely, still stunned by his find.

“Why haven’t you visited us?” A younger mostly human looking girl demanded with a large exaggerated pout and honestly John had no answer for that.

“Oh, hush, Ella.” The second girl scolded. “Uncle has been busy. Daddy even said so.”

“Daddy?” John asked.

“Yeah, Daddy!” Another older troll answered, a girl with wide horns that looked familiar and it took a couple seconds to connect them to Tavros. “He visits us every day and plays with us before he goes upstairs. We aren’t allowed up there until he says we can.”

“And when we do, apparently we’re old enough to go someplace much cooler than here.” The younger human girl, Ella, John mentally reminded himself, said in a chipper tone. “But apparently Joan and Jean aren’t old enough because we’re half human.”

John was lost, confused by what the children were talking about but couldn’t figure out how to speak. And became even more lost as the children continued to speak, leaving him in the dust, so he just looked around at the children.

There were about five girls that looked like Jane, and even a couple girl trolls that had white eyes instead of yellow and paler skin with wavy horns of varying lengths. Then there were about six trolls of varying ages that looked like they were the children of Tavros and Gamzee, with wavy mixed with wide horns. The last two were amongst the oldest and had the strange horns that looked like arrows pointing in different directions, giving John an idea of at least what the third had looked like, for their horns at the very least, even though he no longer remembered the name of the third that had been with Tavros and Jane when they had been alive.

Not sure how much time had passed, John found himself sitting in the room, surrounded by Jane and Tavros and the third’s children, though apparently not all of them.

“Some of our older brothers already left.” Ella had told him, but none knew where the older ones, who were apparently within a couple months older than Jean and Joan.

He learned Jane’s kids names first. Jean was the first girl John talked to, Joan her twin sister. Then was another pair of twins around six years old, Ella and Emma, with the last girl at only five years old named Cara.

When it came to Tavros and the third’s children, they all blended together. He heard Elliot, Horrus, Arquis, Lasder, and Gendna before they all piled up and John wasn’t even sure who was who.

Then he was given questions of his own, his nieces all exceptionally curious about him, and then about their cousins just upstairs.

“Yes, they have skin like yours.”

“No, neither of them have horns.”

“Well, I dunno yet, they’re not yet a year old.”

Joan crossed her arms with a pout. “I wanna see them!” And with that, chaos ensued in the room as they all gave a chorus of yeses and demands to see the new babies but John wasn’t sure how the others would react to suddenly there being fifteen new kids in the room, more than half of them trolls.

John was trying to calm the kids down when one of the boys looked over John’s shoulder with bright eyes and called in a louder voice. “Daddy! Can we see them?”

The Omega twirled around in surprise, eyes wide and guilty for being found by Gamzee. The highblood had an unreadable expression in his eyes, though he smiled at the kids.

“Only if the mothers say yes.” Gamzee answered, and the kids cheered before Jane’s girls practically barrelled John over in their attempt to get him to say yes.

John quickly folded under the combined pouts and puppy looks his sister’s children gave, as well as the younger trolls in the room.

“Then in the morning. It’s late, don’t you think?” Gamzee suggested as a couple of the youngest in the room yawned widely and softly.

The kids smiled at the prospect of meeting younger grubs and hybrids and the feeling of excitement was infectious, as both John and Gamzee had warm smiles as they looked among the kids before the elders went about preparing the others for sleep, and the two others left.

“I was hoping for more motherfucking time before letting you know about them.” Gamzee muttered with a somewhat sad sigh as he and John walked up the stairs to the main floor.

“Why were we not told about them? And where are the older ones, Joan and them said the much older ones, who are Joan and Jean’s age?” John asked slowly, curious but stepping carefully in case it was a taboo question.

“You motherfuckers weren’t in the right mind at first. I was protecting my grubs.” Gamzee replied, turning to face John fully as they reached the landing. “It’s a troll custom, to leave at a certain age. It was also getting crowded for them.”

John had more questions to ask, but at the look Gamzee had on his face, he could tell he wasn’t going to get anything, so he sighed inaudibly, nodding as he headed to find Nepeta, who must still be in the kids’ room to wait for him to feed Jaye and Joel. He had a lot to tell her, and later Karkat.

He wondered how they were going to react.

Chapter done!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All the babies.  
> All of them.  
> Too many and I am drowning in trying to remember ages and blood colours and horns. Even names are getting hard to remember for me. I named all of Jane's kids before any of the others,though, it was fun to think up their names.


	13. Epilogue

Years past. John kept his children while the others, the ones that could pass or were fully troll, left to explore the world or whatever it was that trolls did. It was always a tearful event, watching them go. Watching Tizali and her sisters leave the house for the last time, never to return, then Leopat’s litter, then Karkat’s first grub, Kenaya – named after a childhood friend that stuck in the troll’s head even after all these years

But eventually even John’s kids had to leave, as well as his nieces. When the twins were fourteen they were finally allowed to leave after an even more tearful farewell from the house and well-wishing and good luck.

Nepeta had many kids in her life with Gamzee and the others, although John had stopped counting after her 20th grub, Lavina. John had quite a few of his own, with traits spanning from Gamzee’s scary calmness to Nepeta’s cuteness to Karkat’s mutations. He loved them all, from Joel and Jaye to June and Lexy. Karkat, on the other hand, only bore ten grubs off his own and John knew their names all by heart, from Kenaya to Strzie to Nestra to his youngest Kitkat and Karina.

Life doesn’t always answer every question asked. It never explains itself why events led the way it did, nor do most people expect life to actually answer.

John watched as another sickness overcame his family, and knew no one would survive this one. It started with the kids, with the youngest, Kayzen. She got sick and would not get better.

It spread to the others soon after, eventually grabbing hold of Karkat, who had always been weak in terms of an immune system. None knew what to do, but they tried everything they could. John kept the ill company, keeping them as healthy as they could get until he fell as well.

Life wouldn’t answer them as they begged to know what caused the illness, why it wouldn’t stop, where it came from, how they could stop it before any more died, before any more caught it.

Life never answers, why would it start?

John remembered the pain of the illness. It started with unbearable coughs, as if he was trying to cough out a lung, and sometimes blood would come up, the pain of coughing scratching his throat so badly until it soon felt normal to cough up blood.

Then came what John could only think of as organ failure. His body wouldn’t listen to him, wouldn’t sit up, would turn when he wanted it to, and there were times his lungs forgot to work.

He hoped the others didn’t feel this as the illness took over, but who was he kidding? He caught it from them, of course they would be feeling this god awful pain.

The room smelled sweet after a few days, sickeningly sweet when the organ failure began again, and just one second he was staring at the ceiling, the next he just… couldn’t see. His eyelids too heavy, his breath coming in slower and slower as his heart thumped with each breath.

John remembered his last thought being of his nieces, and hoping they would live long and happy lives.

He slipped into a sleep, his breath stopping long after his heart had.

Story done!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not happy with how this fic ended, I'll be the first to admit it.  
> But... I have nothing else to write. I'm sorry. Really.  
> If you possibly want to learn more about the universe I made for this fic, you can always ask in the comments or send an ask/message on tumblr, I'm canadiantardis there as well.

**Author's Note:**

> If you have any questions about this universe or anything, don't be afraid to ask. I feed off of comments.


End file.
